- "It is time the wishful-thinkers grew up politically
and debated the world of great power as it is, not as they hope it will
be.
-
- "Like all serious presidential candidates, past
and present, Obama is a hawk and an expansionist.
-
- "To AIPAC, Obama promised to support an "undivided
Jerusalem" as Israel's capital. Not a single government on earth supports
the Israeli annexation of all of Jerusalem, including the Bush regime,
which recognises the UN resolution designating Jerusalem an international
city.
-
- "In Miami, speaking to the expatriate Cuban community
- which over the years has faithfully produced terrorists, assassins and
drug runners for US administrations - Obama promised to continue a 47-year
crippling embargo on Cuba that has been declared illegal by the UN year
after year.
-
- "Again, Obama went further than Bush. He said the
United States had "lost Latin America". He described the democratically
elected governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua as a "vacuum"
to be filled. He raised the nonsense of Iranian influence in Latin America,
and he endorsed Colombia's "right to strike terrorists who seek safe-havens
across its borders". Obama also endorsed the so-called Merida Initiative,
which Amnesty International and others have condemned as the US bringing
the "Colombian solution" to Mexico. He did not stop there. "We
must press further south as well," he said. Not even Bush has said
that.
-
- "It is time the wishful-thinkers grew up politically
and debated the world of great power as it is, not as they hope it will
be.
-
- "Like all serious presidential candidates, past
and present, Obama is a hawk and an expansionist. - John Pilger
-
-
- Obama Is A True Democratic Expansionist
- By John Pilger
- 6-12-8
-
- Truly exciting and historic moments have been fabricated
around US presidential campaigns for as long as I can recall, generating
bullshit on a grand scale
-
- In 1941, the editor Edward Dowling wrote: "The two
greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread
delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic
terror among the rich, lest we get it." What has changed? The terror
of the rich is greater than ever, and the poor have passed on their delusion
to those who believe that when George W Bush finally steps down next January,
his numerous threats to the rest of humanity will diminish.
-
- The nomination of Barack Obama, which, according to one
breathless commentator, "marks a truly exciting and historic moment
in US history", is a product of the new delusion. Actually, it just
seems new. Truly exciting and historic moments have been fabricated around
US presidential campaigns for as long as I can recall, generating what
can only be described as bullshit on a grand scale. Race, gender, appearance,
body language, rictal spouses and offspring, even bursts of tragic grandeur,
are all subsumed by marketing and "image-making", now magnified
by "virtual" technology. Thanks to an undemocratic electoral
college system (or, in Bush's case, tampered voting machines) only those
who both control and obey the system can win. This has been the case since
the truly historic and exciting victory of Harry Truman, the liberal Democrat
said to be a humble man of the people, who went on to show how tough he
was by obliterating two cities with the atomic bomb.
-
- Understanding Obama as a likely president of the United
States is not possible without understanding the demands of an essentially
unchanged system of power: in effect a great media game. For example, since
I compared Obama with Robert Kennedy in these pages, he has made two important
statements, the implications of which have not been allowed to intrude
on the celebrations. The first was at the conference of the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the Zionist lobby, which, as Ian Williams
has pointed out, "will get you accused of anti-Semitism if you quote
its own website about its power". Obama had already offered his genuflection,
but on 4 June went further. He promised to support an "undivided Jerusalem"
as Israel's capital. Not a single government on earth supports the Israeli
annexation of all of Jerusalem, including the Bush regime, which recognises
the UN resolution designating Jerusalem an international city.
-
- His second statement, largely ignored, was made in Miami
on 23 May. Speaking to the expatriate Cuban community - which over the
years has faithfully produced terrorists, assassins and drug runners for
US administrations - Obama promised to continue a 47-year crippling embargo
on Cuba that has been declared illegal by the UN year after year.
-
- Again, Obama went further than Bush. He said the United
States had "lost Latin America". He described the democratically
elected governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua as a "vacuum"
to be filled. He raised the nonsense of Iranian influence in Latin America,
and he endorsed Colombia's "right to strike terrorists who seek safe-havens
across its borders". Translated, this means the "right"
of a regime, whose president and leading politicians are linked to death
squads, to invade its neighbours on behalf of Washington. He also endorsed
the so-called Merida Initiative, which Amnesty International and others
have condemned as the US bringing the "Colombian solution" to
Mexico. He did not stop there. "We must press further south as well,"
he said. Not even Bush has said that.
-
- It is time the wishful-thinkers grew up politically and
debated the world of great power as it is, not as they hope it will be.
Like all serious presidential candidates, past and present, Obama is a
hawk and an expansionist. He comes from an unbroken Democratic tradition,
as the war-making of presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton
demonstrates. Obama's difference may be that he feels an even greater need
to show how tough he is. However much the colour of his skin draws out
both racists and supporters, it is otherwise irrelevant to the great power
game. The "truly exciting and historic moment in US history"
will only occur when the game itself is challenged.
-
- http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2008/06/pilger-obama-truly-bush
-
- See also:
- From Kennedy to Obama: False Hopes
-
- http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=489
-
- John Pilger, renowned investigative journalist and documentary
film-maker, is one of only two to have twice won British journalism's top
award; his documentaries have won academy awards in both the UK and the
US. In a New Statesman survey of the 50 heroes of our time, Pilger came
fourth behind Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. "John Pilger,"
wrote Harold Pinter, "unearths, with steely attention facts, the filthy
truth. I salute him."
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